Generally, there are two types of shower stalls, pre-made and custom fabricated stalls. Custom fabricated stalls are often utilized for home renovations when it is difficult to transport large building materials through home doorways. Custom fabricated stalls are also used for installations not having a “typical” or industry standard sized shower area. These stalls are often tiled for decorative and aesthetic appeal. Typically, when constructing a custom tiled shower stall, the stall area is pre-fitted with a waterproof liner, shower pan, or other water impermeable surface to prevent water from leaking from the stall. Generally, the decorative tiles are then set in mortar over the liner to form the interior wall of the stall. However, tiled shower stalls are known to leak for a variety of reasons.
One such reason for shower stall leaks stems from damage to the waterproof shower liner or membrane. For example, a hole or tear in the liner can occur during the installation of the tile, which can require an installer to start all over in constructing the custom shower stall. Other leaks occur from damage to the shower pan or liner caused by the settling of the house. Regardless of how the leaks are born, significant damage can occur to the structure of the house as a result of the water leaks. Such damage can be costly and time consuming to correct.
Another problem with existing custom shower stalls is the difficulty in connecting the water drain of a shower stall to a drainpipe in the floor of the house. Presently, custom-built shower basins typically utilize specialized drain plumbing to connect the two, which results in additional plumbing work, installation time, and cost.
Shower systems and drainage floor assemblies commonly utilize a raised curb or threshold to limit the spread of water across a floor area. Traditionally, a shower curb was formed from a wood base structure with tile or other water-resistant surface material applied thereon. Over time, however, water may migrate through the surface material and into the wood base. This commonly causes the wood base to swell, resulting in cracks in the tile or other surface material, and rotting of the wood base material. Water migration is all the more likely if anchors for mounting or supporting a shower partition or shower door are driven through the water-resistant surface material into the base material, which forms a penetration pathway for leakage.
Other base materials such as concrete, expanded foam blocks, and solid plastic blocks or synthetic wood products have been utilized for fabricating a shower curb, but have not been found fully satisfactory. Concrete cores are time consuming and expensive to produce, heavy and therefore not well suited to transport from a remote fabrication facility to a jobsite, and require special tools to drill and drive anchors into for mounting partitions or shower doors. Expanded foam blocks typically lack sufficient holding strength to retain anchors for mounting partitions or shower doors, and their exterior surface may not be compatible for adhesion by grout to apply a tile surface thereon. Solid plastic blocks or synthetic wood products can also be undesirably heavy and expensive.
Furthermore, the decorative tiles or other walking surfaces or flooring in bathrooms and showers are typically wet and slippery, which commonly cause slips and falls, sometimes leading to injuries. The flooring in such areas is commonly sloped for drainage, and often uses hard and unforgiving surface materials, often increasing the likelihood of a fall and/or the likelihood of sustaining an injury from a fall.
Thus it can be seen that needs exist for improvements to custom-built shower bases to prevent water from leaking from the shower stall in combination with an improved base structure for forming a shower curb and an improved shower pan insert. It can also be seen that needs exist for shower bases that allow a direct, reliable and universal connection between the shower drain and the interior plumbing of a house, in combination with an improved base structure including a composite shower curb assembly and an improved shower pan insert. It is to the provision of an improved shower base with composite curb and an improved shower pan or drainage floor assembly meeting these and other needs that the present invention is primarily directed.